In The Corner Office we invite Managing Partners at law firms from across the region to share information about their careers, management styles, and strategies. The question this time around: Is your personal practice more or less the one you anticipated when you finished law school, or did it change somehow in the interim?

On 26 May 2017, the National Bank of Ukraine (the "NBU"), by its Resolution No. 41,1 relaxed some of the temporary currency control restrictions that were imposed to stabilise the Ukrainian foreign exchange market.

Avellum has advised its longstanding client Kernel Holding S.A. on the acquisition of 100% of shares in a large-scale farming business that manages over 190,000 hectares of leasehold farmland and approximately 200,000 tons of grain storage capacity. The value of the deal was USD 155 million. The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine approved the acquisition in May 2017.

On June 2, 2017, Andriy Stelmashchuk, the Managing Partner of Vasil Kisil & Partners, and Vladimir Sayenko, the Managing Partner of Sayenko Kharenko, were elected President and Vice President of the Ukrainian Bar Association, respectively, for two-year terms.

Sayenko Kharenko has acted as Ukrainian legal counsel to joint lead managers J.P. Morgan Securities plc and ING Bank N.V., London Branch in connection with the cash tender offer with respect to USD 750 million 8.25 percent notes due 2020 and the issue of new USD 500 million 7.75 percent notes due 2024 by MHP S.A. MHP was advised by Avellum on Ukrainian law and Freshfields on English law.

Dentons’ Kyiv office has acted as legal counsel to the Ingenico Group on its acquisition of the payment activities business of Bancomzvjazok JSC (BKC) through the purchase of 100% of the shares in a newly created legal entity, SST (Systems of Secure Transactions).

Asters, represented by Partner Vadym Samoilenko and Associate Maryana Sayenko, has joined the working group for the establishment of a medical cluster as part of the the V. I. Vernadsky Tavriyskiy National University organized under the auspices of the Government of Ukraine.

Sayenko Kharenko Counsel Olexander Droug has coached the team of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, Institute of International Relations for the 24th Willem C. Vis Moot court competition. This year, the oral rounds of the Moot court competition took place in Vienna from April 6- April 13, 2017.

Alexander Borodkin, Partner at Vasil Kisil & Partners in Ukraine, is asked what lawyers are talking about in his country at the moment. "I would say they’re talking about new investments,” Borodkin answers.

The 2017 CEE Legal Matters General Summit took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw on June 1-2, 2017, once again bringing together well over a hundred General Counsel and Heads of Legal from across Central and Eastern Europe for two full days (and one entertaining evening) of seminars, panel discussions, best practices review, and networking. This year’s event — the third annual, following the 2015 GC Summit in Budapest and the 2016 GC Summit in Istanbul — was the biggest and most successful yet.

On May 31 and June 1, 2017, CEE Legal Matters was proud to host a rare event: A gathering of those senior lawyers from each Central and Eastern European country identified by peers as being most influential, most important, most uniquely responsible for having created the country’s modern commercial legal market.

DLA Piper has advised steel producer EVRAZ on its sale of the entire issued share capital of Kadish Limited, the holding company of EVRAZ Sukha Balka, a Ukrainian enterprise specializing in iron ore underground mining, to Berklemond Investments Ltd, a company of the DCH Group, for USD110 million of gross consideration, adjustable for the actual level of working capital and debt.

Ukraine Knowledge Partner

Avellum is a leading Ukrainian full service law firm with a special focus on finance, M&A, and dispute resolution. Our goal is to be the firm of choice for our clients with respect to their most significant business transactions. We bring the most advanced Western legal techniques and practice, which, coupled with our first-hand knowledge, broad industry experience, and unparalleled level of service, will help our clients achieve best results in their business endeavours. We work seamlessly in integrated teams with premier US, UK and European law firms in course of multijurisdictional transactions. The team consists of 26 highly qualified attorneys, including three partners – Mykola Stetsenko, Glib Bondar, and Dmytro Marchukov, who are actively involved in every transaction. Avellum is recognised as one of the leading law firms in Ukraine by various international legal directories and Ukrainian legal editions (Chambers, Legal500, IFLR1000, Ukrainian Law Firms, and others).